The Pine Log

              CMYK
Thursday, April 14, 2011
TODAY
H 80 L 67
The
FRIDAY
H 78 L 43
SATURDAY
H 78 L 44
Volume 90
Issue 17
Next Publication:
Monday, April 18, 2011
Visit us online at
www.thepinelog.com
The Independent Voice of Stephen F. Austin State University
Page 4
.
Trump’s
campaign
means losing
more than hair
Page 6 PINE LOG
Thomas throws
four-hit shutout
in win over
Texas
MS. CAY MCANINCH
Lecturer of Elementary
Education
College of Education
DR. LINDA BOND
Assistant Professor of Global
Media
College of Liberal &
Applied Arts
DR. GARY WURTZ
Associate Professor
of Music
College of Fine Arts
DR. CHRIS COMER
Assistant Professor
of Forestry
College of Forestry &
Agriculture
DR. LESA BEVERLY
Associate Professor of
Mathematics
College of Sciences &
Mathematics
DR. ELTON SCIFRES
Professor of Marketing,
Management & International
Business
College of Business
THOMAS MOTYKA/THE PINE LOG
(Above) Dr. Erin Brown, assistant professor of agriculture, received the first ever Teaching
Excellence Award for Service Learning from Dr. Adam Peck, dean of student affairs, at the
University’s annual Teaching Excellence Convocation Wednesday. (Right) In addition to this
award, one faculty member from each college was honored for their contribution to SFA
through excellence as teachers.
Seven honored for 2011 teaching excellence
“Teaching is the very heart of what this University is about.”
— DR. BAKER PATTILLO, SFA PRESIDENT
By Liza Mac Donald
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
In a world where slavery is accepted as
a thing of the past, it is easy to forget that
slavery still exists.
“Till all of us are free, none of us are
free,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, while
being interviewed about the organization
Finding Refuge.
Emotions were running high at 6 p.m.
on Thursday in Kennedy Auditorium. In
an effort to help the organization Finding
Refuge, SFA sororities and fraternities cre-ated
a competition out of raising money
and creating awareness for child slavery in
Ghana, Africa.
As part of its annual Derby Days events,
Sigma Chi hosted Mike Penn and Becca
Piland as they presented information about
the outreach Finding Refuge. As soon as the
opening video began, the entire auditorium
fell silent.
Penn and Piland spent a summer work-ing
in Ghana last year at the orphanage City
of Refuge. That summer has greatly im-pacted
their lives, and in return they have
expressed the desire to share their passion
for freeing the enslaved children of Lake
Volta, Ghana.
“I was so ignorant,” Piland said. “I didn’t
know what was going on,” but since her
encounter with these children she wants to
see slavery abolished.
Tutu described City of Refuge as “striking
a blow for human dignity.” The idea behind
Finding Refuge is that it “only takes one, to
make a difference.”
Child slavery is one of the fastest grow-ing
problems in Ghana. John Omorefe is a
man from Nigeria, and Stacy Omorefe is a
woman from the U.S. This couple formed
the outreach City of Refuge, which is an
orphanage for children that have been sold
into slavery by their parents and need a
place to escape.
“We go to City of Refuge and meet all of
these kids,” Penn said, “and you can’t help
but notice the scars on these boys. They
aren’t the scars of a 10-year-old, they’re the
scars of a 40-year-old. So you’re thinking
where did these children get these scars?
That’s when we learned these scars were
from their slave masters.”
Often families have around six children,
and single mothers’ are not able to provide
for their kids so they sell them to slave mas-ters.
Penn and Piland described the slave
masters as seemingly well-intentioned.
They promise these mothers that their chil-dren
will be taken care of.
Yet in reality, the boys will paddle a canoe
as young as 3 years old and work between
14- and 18-hour work days.
When these boys’ do not meet their quota
for the day, they are beaten and sent back
out to the lake, while young girls complete
all domestic tasks and are often sexually
abused by their owners.
According to the facts presented,
200,000,000 children suffer under slavery
today. Finding Refuge wants these children
to be known.
Penn and Piland travel and speak to uni-versities
in order to create “hype” about
the situation. They believe that one person
can do so much and awareness is half the
battle.
Penn and Piland encouraged anyone in-terested
to visit the website www.findin-grefuge.
com. Volunteers are always wel-come,
they said.
pinelog@thepinelog.com
By Allison Percival
STAFF WRITER
The American Medical Student
Association is camping out on the
plaza today from 1 to 4:30 p.m. for
hair donations.
They have a professional hair
stylist cutting hair, which will be
donated to Locks of Love. The
stylist is offering a $10 discount
for students who donate to have
their hair styled.
“Locks of Love is an oppor-tunity
help children who are
going through chemotherapy
or have Alopecia, to have their
hair again,” Nicole Lejeune, com-mittee
chair and pre-veterinary
major of AMSA, said.
Alopecia is an auto-immune
disorder which essentially causes
hair follicles to shut down. This
could range from complete hair-loss
to bald patches and affects
about 4.7 million people in the
United States.
Lejeune said they received nu-merous
donations already and
are hoping for more.
To make a donation, Locks of
Love requires a minimum of at
least 10 inches of hair for a hair-piece.
However, at least six inches
is required to go toward other
hair-related products such as eye-lashes.
“Everyone should participate
by coming out and donating their
hair,” Lejeune said. “After all, our
hair will always grow back.”
apercival@thepinelog.com
Finding Refuge brings focus to enslaved children of Ghana
For cancer victims,
Locks of Love gives
more than just hair
SUE CORTEZ/THE PINE LOG
Hayley Saville, Fort Worth freshman, gets her hair cut on the plaza Wednesday afternoon as part of the Locks
of Love charity, which donates hairpieces to children who have lost their hair due to illnesses. The non-profit
group has recipients in over 50 states, according to its website, and is continually working to help financially
disadvantaged children in the U.S. and Canada who have become victims of long-term hair loss.